BELLEVILLE, Kan. — The storied Belleville High Banks fires back to life this weekend with the United Rebel Sprint Series-sanctioned Fifth Annual Belleville 305 Sprint Car Nationals.
A stellar field of drivers will slug it out for $7,000-to-win and $1,000-to-start in Saturday night’s finale after vying for Friday’s $2,500-to-win and $350-to-start preliminary bout.
The current entry count stands at 44 cars with an assortment of drivers from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, South Dakota, Missouri and New Mexico.
Reigning Belleville 305 Nationals champion Luke Cranston is among the current entries as he attempts to make it two in a row after beating Jason Martin and Stu Snyder to the line to take the lucrative win last August.
Cranston became the third winner of the event after Jake Bubak topped the initial two renditions in 2018 and 2019, with Adam Trimble pulling off an upset win in 2020.
Zach Blurton will take aim at the top spot after scoring a preliminary feature win in 2020 while Steven Richardson leads the URSS forces into the weekend as the current series points leader. Richardson holds a slim advantage over Jeremy Huish and Cranston.
This year’s version of the Belleville 305 Sprint Car Nationals will feature a change of format, adopting a version of the popular All Star Circuit of Champions format that includes qualifying among heat race groups to set heat race lineups with a four-car inversion.
Heat race winners, along with the fastest qualifier among transfer positions, will go to the feature redraw, with any heat race winner that is also that race’s fastest qualifier knocking a car out of the redraw.Â